Thirteen Words
by Thatch Greene
Summary: 'This is my note. That's what people do, isn't it? Leave a note.' - Thirteen words meant to be John Watson's last, left untouched in an unpublished blog post, uttered by his best friend before committing suicide.


**A/N:** Felt inspired last night and wrote this out before bed. Feedback is always appreciated. I do not own the heartbreaking dialogue or the message sent to John - the dialogue is all BBC's and the message is from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Final Problem'.

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_This is my note. That's what people do, isn't it? Leave a note. _

These words were to be John Watson's last; thirteen words making up what he planned on being his first and last blog post. Civilian life wasn't suiting him, an odd concept considering before going to war in Afghanistan he knew of no other way of life. Encouraged by his dying father and the promise of no debt in exchange for just a few years of service, John joined the army shortly before beginning his last year of medical school.

When the conflict began, John was not considered an option for deployment - his name was far enough down on the list alphabetically to keep him mostly out of anyone's notice and there always seemed to be someone far more patriotic closer to the top of the list.

The year his father finally passed away after a seemingly endless battle with cancer, one of the physicians that John had gone through boot camp with was killed in action. The loss made him take the opportunity and within the fortnight he was traveling to the Middle East.

Being shot at wasn't quite the life he had imagined but as the end of his first tour approached it seemed a favorable choice over returning to a life with no one waiting for him back home with the exception of an alcoholic sister driven back to the bottle after their father's death. John signed on to stay and planned on continuing to do so as long as they would allow him - there weren't many people offering their services so his position was fairly secure. That is, until he was injured in the line of duty.

A bullet wound to the shoulder wasn't fatal but proved enough to deem him unfit to continue serving in active duty. He bitterly agreed to be sent home and be honorably discharged. John's arm was still cradled in a sling when his sister picked him up at the airport. They hadn't had much contact during his deployment but the pieces easily fell together in his mind once arriving at her apartment and finding it messy and Clara-less. The situation was not particularly comfortable and was rather short-lived.

John had enough money to settle into a tiny flat on a short term lease and the good intentions of adapting. This attempt was mostly unsuccessful.

The therapy for his shoulder was quicker than he expected, though it would continue to occasionally bother him. He liked running immensely, enjoying the blissful emptiness of mind he could achieve. However his enthusiasm for returning to am exercise regimen resulted in the development of shin splints, particularly painful in his right leg. The cane had been a temporary solution to take some of the pressure off the muscle, allow it to heal, but it quickly became a necessity, an extension of his arm that he barely noticed anymore.

Post-traumatic stress disorder. The diagnosis was a certainty in John's mind, that he had expected to be labeled with since returning home. He had a tremor in his left hand, though he himself barely noticed it, and a limp due to phantom pain from shin splints that had long since healed. He only stuck to the medication he had so casually been supplied with for a month before refusing the treatment altogether. He felt numb enough on his own without the chemical aid.

The psychiatrist's next suggestion felt just as foreign to him as the medication haze did but it was the only way the doctor would agree to allow him to stop the medication. John Watson was instructed to begin writing a blog, the subject of which was to be his daily life. Each morning he awoke and sat down at the computer with his morning tea but the words could never come to him. At his next appointment the doctor could see easily through his bluff and insisted that he at least try and write, that it would help.

This would be the day that changed John Watson's life; this would be the day he met Sherlock Holmes.

He couldn't decide if the man was a lunatic or brilliant - either way, he was intriguing and the prospect of being able to move back to the heart of London made the proposition of becoming the man's flatmate hard to resist. Over the course of their friendship, Sherlock had brought John to many unexpected places in life like shooting a cabbie driver, having a bomb strapped to his chest, and nearly being executed by the CIA in Irene Adler's sitting room. Mycroft was right - living with Sherlock Holmes was like returning to war.

Still, after all of their adventures together, John had never imagined himself on the street near Bart's, staring up at his best friend preparing to plummet to his death. The sight made his heart nearly stop and his mouth went dry.

"Okay, look up. I'm on the rooftop."

"Oh, god." The words escaped John's mouth barely louder than a whisper, feeling as if all the air had been sucked from his lungs.

"I can't come down so we'll just have to do it like this." Sherlock's voice was trembling. It was unsettling. Their conversation continued but John could barely focus on what was being said, desperately trying to come up with a plan to stop the inevitable fall that would soon follow. "Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?"

"Do what?"

"This phone call, it's...it's my note. That's what people do, don't they? Leave a note." The words settled in his stomach like hot stones, burning and compelling him to be sick, to rid the idea from his body that his best friend was not only ending his own life but had saved John's that day they first met.

Thirteen words, the ones meant to be John's last - the only place they resided besides his own mind was the draft portion of his blog. The first post he had ever written sat unpublished and all but forgotten after meeting Sherlock. It had been authored that morning before his appointment but fear of it being discovered early and his plans being halted caused his hesitation in publishing. He promised himself that he would after returning home, that the masquerade of attempting normalcy would end and that he could finally be at peace. However when he returned home that night, he found his way not back to the draft but to Sherlock's website. The science of deduction proved to be an interesting, if somewhat unbelievable read but had kept him distracted.

"Leave a note when?" John already knew the answer but it didn't stop him from asking.

"Goodbye, John."

"No. Don't -" _leave me. _The last half of the statement died in his throat as he observed Sherlock drop his phone onto the roof behind him and step off the ledge. When he finally reached the sidewalk where the body lay, John's legs gave out from under him. It was the blood that got to him. John had seen his fair share of fallen comrades in battle but none had ever been as dear to him as Sherlock. The blood pooled around his head, saturating the man's hair. He checked for a pulse, knowing he wouldn't find one but needing to touch him to confirm the sight was not one cruelly formulated by his mind. Sherlock's body was lifted onto a stretcher, out of John's grasp and time seemed to slow exponentially as he cried in the arms of people on the street, his eyes focused on the deep red liquid staining the pavement before him.

The following month passed in a blur. He could recall vague images from those days but preferred not to. One of the first clear days he had was visiting Sherlock's grave with Mrs. Hudson; he still felt as if he was running on autopilot but at least this day he was awake for the ride. He was grateful when the landlady gave him a moment alone, a chance to speak the words that had been circulating throughout his entire body, taking little bits of him as they cycled continuously waiting to be spoken. "You...you told me once that you weren't a hero. Um. There were times that I didn't even think you were human. But let me tell you this, you were the best man and the most human...human being that I have ever known and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie. And so...there."

It didn't take long once John was thinking straight to realize how Sherlock had found his words. After all, it had only taken Sherlock less than a minute to decipher the password to John's laptop so the jump to the blog shouldn't have been much of a stretch. A few days after the fall, John logged into his account and after a bit of searching was able to find his way back to that first draft, wondering how it had escaped his notice for so long. There was very little information to be attained and his hope was waning when something caught his attention.

There was a date listed as when he originally saved those thirteen words but there was another date listed as just a few days before Sherlock's suicide indicating that it had updated. John's hand was shaking slightly as he moved the cursor to click and open the page, unsure of what he would find, if anything at all. At the very least he had confirmation that Sherlock had found his way here and maybe that would be enough.

Once he worked up the courage to actually open the page John felt flooded with disappointment. There was nothing additional to find - no smart remarks, which he would have most expected. There was nothing Sherlock would love more than to plant the message and wait for him to find it. He was shaking his head, laughing lightly under his breath at the thought of his best friend trying to play a joke on him. He absently scrolled quickly up and back down the page, resigned to the fact that there was nothing more to see when the text box scrolled as well, revealing a message added on later and stuck far enough down that had he not continued scrolling and instead just hit the back button, it never would have been noticed.

_'I think you know me well enough, Watson, to understand that I am by no means a nervous man. At the same time, it is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.'_

Sherlock's message, posted a few days before his suicide would not leave John's mind. Over time, they seemed to stop feeling quite as painful and more comforting than anything. Sherlock had obviously been aware of something unknown still to him and made his decision based on what he believed would bring about the greater good.

John could feel tears coming to his eyes and his next words were shaky. "I was so alone and I owe you so much. Please, there's just one more thing. One more thing. One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't be...dead. Would you do that, just for me? Just stop it, stop this..."

_You saved my life. Why didn't you let me save yours? _

John touched the smooth headstone momentarily before turning and walking deliberately from the cemetery. He wanted to be angry but that particular emotion had been one he was unable to find. Instead, every time anger began to build, his mind eagerly called upon Sherlock's message.

"I think you know me well enough, Watson..."

John did know him well enough. It would only become harder as time passed but he would never truly come to terms with Sherlock's absence, choosing instead to believe that when the time was right and danger wasn't so close that he would see his friend again someday.


End file.
